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Karl Moore talks to Abdul Allah Al-Amro, the CEO of King Fahad Medical City, one of the largest medical complexes in the World. Dr. Al-Amro is also the author of a book on Islamic leadership, which is out in Arabic but not yet in English.

Karl Moore: To start off with, how do you define Islamic leadership? What is Islamic leadership in your mind?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: To start with, there is nothing called Islamic, non-Islamic leadership, or religious leadership. Leadership is leadership and basically the Islamic leadership is hooked with the values of Islam and the leadership. Obviously there are arching values for any leader, which makes him a leader. The person becomes a leader when he has followers basically, because there are many values in leadership whether the person is actually a Muslim or non-Muslim. Most of the values which we can read and see in the leaders of the world, most of those values in reality are also being emphasized in Islam.

What I have done in my book and also what I have practised in my leadership is to present those values and hook them with the religious values because I believe strongly that if you work with the soul you convince the person much easier than if you are just working with the body, or the mind, or the emotions.

I believe that, and I am sure that many people know that there are actually many different aspects of the whole body, concept or principle. The values of the soul, and then you have the body, the emotions or the way of thinking. Basically, when I say ‘Islamic leadership,' it is hooking those values with the practice.

Karl Moore: Then the idea is to engage the whole person and not just the body but also the soul and mind as well as part of that?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: Exactly.

Karl Moore: As the CEO of a medical city you have many leaders working for you, a number of executive directors. What do you look for when you go to appoint one of those people? What are the qualities that you are thinking about?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: That is really interesting and I will just go backwards a bit. When I started King Fahad Medical City, which as you indicated I think is one of the largest medical cities or complexes in the world, I was lucky to be the first CEO of this medical complex and started five years ago.

Just imagine the start of a medical complex and the first meeting. The first meeting that I had was on a Saturday. Saturday for us is the first of the week, Monday on your side. I said that I needed all of the people who are in the position of director or head to come and I wanted to see them.

Basically, the people who really had the title of director were only two. The first thing that I did was that I said that I need the CVs of those who were in the room. I asked each to do a presentation to see their way of thinking, and what they have achieved. Obviously, when I started there was a transfer from a small general hospital to the Medical City and this is why we had some directors and heads of sections.

Then I started the actual real work of human resources: recruitment and building the structures and what have you. I actually placed the rules, which I call ‘ABCDE'. A stands for attitude; B stands for background; C stands for communication skills; D stands for doer; and E stands for energy. Before I hired any person I would look at those.

The other message that I used to tell my colleagues who are in the human resources side is that each position at KFMC is like my daughter. Anybody who wants to propose to my daughter, I need to be very careful about and look carefully at his behaviour, his background, and that he suits that position. That is what makes it difficult.

I also tell them another thing, which is that in three years, if nobody has proposed to you as a person working at KFMC. What I mean by ‘proposed to you' is that somebody wants to hire you and attract you to another position outside of KFMC. If in three years you do not develop the skills and the knowledge that somebody would want to attract you to a position in their organization, then you have a problem and I have a problem. You have the problem that you have not developed in three years and I have a problem that I did not make KFMC a suitable place for training and growth. I think those are the reasons that we have growth at KFMC.

Karl Moore: This sounds very much like a CEO in North America. Do you read Western leadership literature yourself?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: Yes, I do. Actually, I had some of my leadership training in the United States. I actually worked closely with the American physician executive leadership courses more than 10 years ago. I almost had my Masters in Health Administration from the University of Minnesota. The reason why I said ‘almost' was because after 9/11 it became very difficult to travel at one stage. That is why I did not complete the master's. The other thing is that Harvard Business Review is one of my favourite journals that I read, with the leadership value. When I travel I have a couple of them with me.

Karl Moore: President Obama recently said that CEOS for companies that are being supported by the U.S. government would make a maximum of $500,000 a year. What is the view from your part of the world about high CEO salaries?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: That is really interesting. Let me talk about it as a person first, and this is my principle. I might be wrong and I know that many people might look at me as wrong. I think that you cannot put a price tag on leadership.

In my opinion, I never negotiated a salary for myself. I never do that. I think that to be a leader, you cannot negotiate a salary. That is something that will put down your values because some of the things that you do as a leader have a value of 20 or 100 million dollars. It depends on the effect; it does not depend on the work. It is not the work that you measure or the number of hours that he does because some of the concepts that he built, we have seen for example in the United States, companies for example such as GE.

Jack Walsh transformed GE and it became one of the largest companies in the World, with the highest profit. Would you come to somebody like Jack Walsh and tell him that he is supposed to have only $500,000? In my opinion that is not the way that you control the spending. I think that you control the spending by taking some of the bad leaders and CEOs and in fact I would probably give more money to some of the good ones to attract them to work in the business and not to move out of the business.

Karl Moore: Perhaps a different question is then, what do you see as the role of women in leadership? Do you see women as leaders within the context of the medical city?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: Yes, we do. In fact the director of the medical centre here is a woman. If you look at the number of women in the Medical City, you probably would not see the equivalent number of ladies or women leaders as compared to men. That is not because we do not believe that they can be leaders but we believe that the problem is availability. It is also happening everywhere in the world that you see more men leaders than women because of the availability of women leadership. I believe that some of them will be leaders but you need more. In fact one of the problems that we face is that we have not given them the chance or the training to be leaders. You cannot come to somebody whom you have not even given the chance to be a leader and say that they are not a leader.

Karl Moore: So you will see more women leaders over the next 10, 20, or 30 years?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: Definitely yes.

Karl Moore: So what are some of the ways that an Islamic leader would lead? What are some of the things that he or she should think about as they become a leader?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: There are actually many aspects. In fact, what I have done in my book and from the way that I have practised my leadership here is that I have taken examples in history. One of the most important in leadership is the model of the guide. In Islamic history there are actually many examples of leaders who worked as leaders or expressed their leadership through their values of Islam. We can look at for example at just one aspect of leadership that is building the mission.

For example there is one area of the Qur'an that says and I am translating which may not be very accurate, but says that the Almighty God did not create us except for worship. The ‘worship' here, in the way that we think in Islam is not only prayer. Actually when you smile at a person or you behave well towards another person, this is also a part of the worship. All of your behaviour, whether it is between you and God, or you and another person is worship. If you take only six words in Arabic, this represents the mission of the person.

For example, if I want to do something wrong, I would ask myself the question of whether this follows my mission or not. Is it worship or not? If it is not then I am not supposed to do it. Very interestingly, I always also tell the people that I work with that God created the heavens and the Earth in six days. This is what we believe and I am sure others will believe that Earth was created in six days; we have our mission in only six words. This is short, very concise and it gives you the path for you to reach your mission. If I want to do something out of temper, or something not right such as not saying the truth for example, in the Islamic values this is not worship. It is the complete opposite.

When I go back to my mission I ask whether it is worship or not; if it is not a worship than I am not supposed to do it. What I have done in my presentations to the leaders of Islam is to hook those values with the current leadership. Also, I compared the studies and the schools of leadership. There are thousands of books available, and those theories I hooked with history of leadership in the Islamic era or the Islamic time of great leadership.

Karl Moore: Do you see any key differences between leading Muslims and leading people in the West who are non-Muslims? What advice would you have for a manager that has Muslims working for him or for her for how to approach them more effectively?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: I do not really see any difference honestly, for leading Muslims or non-Muslims. What I believe in strongly is that a leader becomes a leader when he knows the followers. Obviously you cannot lead people that you do not know. The people will not follow you unless you know them very well and you know their values.

For example, if you take somebody regardless of his religious background, and bring him to a tribe or a city, town or country where he does not respect his or her values, he will never be a leader. We have stories for Muslims, for example Mother Teresa. She came to another environment in another country and she valued their culture. She in fact dressed in their way and because of that she became a great leader. If you want to lead Muslims, the first lesson in my opinion is that you have to know their values, what they believe in and respect that aspect. Then they will definitely respect you as a leader.

Karl Moore: It would seem that we might perceive that in the Islamic world there is more hierarchy than perhaps in North America. Would you say that many Muslim societies are more hierarchical, that there is a bigger difference between the person at the top and then the person at the base of the organization?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: No, I do not think so. Let me just clarify that a bit; what you see now that many Muslim countries practice does not represent the real Islamic leadership. If you go to the history of leadership in Islam, you would probably see a flat organization: A big flat organization where a leader can work, for example as Prophet Mohammed who used to work with the people as they built the mosques. He was actually handling the mud with the people, working in the field. For him this is teamwork probably, promoting the teamwork and this is to tell them that there are no differences between the leader and the worker. Also, he used to work with each one. Actually, after him in history there was also a leader of Islam called Rahmer who created the administrative structure. He was one of the people who started the administrative structures in building the country and in fact he used to work with everybody. What you see now in our hierarchy in Arab or Siman countries might not represent the real Islamic leadership that used to be, in the past.

Karl Moore: One idea is that in Islam the leader is the servant. The leader may have greater income, have a bigger office but he or she is really there to serve the people. Is that your perspective on it?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: Yes and no. In fact you touched on a saying in Arabic, which says that the leader is the servant. They are the same words that you have said, but in Arabic. In reality it sends a message to the leader that leadership is not a position, it is not an office. Leadership is a value within you. You have to believe strongly that you are in that office to help people, to go back to the people and help them to achieve their goals and missions.

Karl Moore: In some ways some would view leadership in Islam as something that Allah appoints. Therefore, if that is true how do you get rid of a bad leader? How does that process work then?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: First of all, this is not true at all. Probably some of what you see in some parts of Islam is that they believe that this is appointed by Allah but it is not true. In fact, God or Allah gives you certain values to make you a leader. In reality people will make you a leader. It does not come from somewhere else because if you do not have followers you will not be a leader; no one will actually follow you. What makes you a leader are the values and capabilities of actually working with others. Here, I do not want to also send the wrong message that there are no bad leaders. You could be a great leader with bad values or you could be a bad leader. What I mean by that is that your values are not good but you have a value to followers.

For example, Hitler was a good leader. He was a good leader in the way that he was capable of having those followers but his values were not good. At the end his product or the result is a disaster. This is where we look at whether it is Islam or not Islam; it depends on the product that you are going to be producing as a leader. I don't think that there is anybody who would say, in the real Islam here, and not what is being practised in certain areas or certain countries that ‘I am appointed by God, you cannot take me out'. That is something ridiculous, it is not true and if you go to the literature of Islam leadership the Prophet Mohammed did not appoint his successor; he trained his successor. It took him almost 20 years to train his successor; he told him what to do but he did not come in front of the people and say ‘when I leave, this other guy will be the leader'. He left it to the people to choose. This was after the second leader, or the first after Prophet Mohammed. Also, there was a democratic election of leaders, and the people were choosing out of six. There were six as we see now in many countries where you have two or three leaders and different parties, people choose out of those three or six leaders. That was the practice there actually for 1400 with the Islamic way. There were six people in front of the people and then those choosing them. Actually in Islam there was also a history of leaders that were taken out of their leadership positions. When I say ‘leaders' it does not always mean the King or the herifa.

Karl Moore: Is there anything else that you think I should ask you Dr. Al-Amro?

Abdul Allah Al-Amro: Nothing in my mind but I think that one of the questions which you raised which is important is whether there is any difference between the Islamic leadership and non-Islamic leadership.

In my opinion I think it is great to understand what Islamic leadership is. If you go to the literature, you see in many bookstores in the United States or Canada or Europe, that you do not see any books on Islamic leadership. Unfortunately, Islam in the past one or two decades has been distorted, and distorted in different ways. It is has been distorted by what you see in the media and distorted by people who say that they have the name of Islam and they are not really Muslims. What we hope to do, with the communication with you and great scholars in North America, is basically to see the other face of leadership in the Middle East. I would really encourage more programs like this and more visits. We value your visit to Saudi Arabia and your visit to KFMC.